Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra Brake Problems

Comments

Hi Lilricky, I am assuming that when you say replaced the brakes you replace the brake pads and rotors... not your calipers. My first reaction would be why are your brakes squeezing and not releasing.. I am thinking your calipers where original and the guide pins were never greased and the fact that you probably dont drive it too much.. that much means general moister re-rusts the pins to the calipers...making them not slide in and out with use... ( based on assumptions)

I would replace all calipers and brake shoes... and possible the rotors... I have had the same experience with factory calipers on the rear .. not the front. I actually replaced all my brakes with after market ( SSBC) parts and now have 140K miles on a 1500GMC sierra...since i moved to after market ..i never have a brake issue.. ever ...you can search my other posts if you would like i have pics of the brake system I installed... the rotors and brake pads just replaced are probably ... EOL due to the heat and stress caused by the over heating...

srry about the thought for sharing photos of the brakes I install, looks like Carspace.com >> was taken down .. send me an email if you want photos.. and i will send them to you .. :confuse:

My 2007 Sierra 4X4 Crew Cab brakes smoothly but on occasion, particulary as I am nearly stopped, the pedal will go almost to the floor and I feel a very slight vibration (like the ABS system). A quick "pump" of the peddle and all is fine. I have 57,000 miles and thought it might be the front pads, so I replaced them (only about half used on the pads - but changed them anyway). Still happens. I'm a bit of a novice, but I did check the fluid, etc. No lights or alerts on the dash have ever illuminated. Possible to have a little air in the brake lines? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks

hi camaro, not sure if you wanted all the solid steel lines for brakes replaced with a prefab kit .. i got and installed mine from classictubing.com, came in a big box and installed in a snap.. biggest issue the dealer had was that the SS fittings were much harder steel than the steel ends they were mounting to on the truck hardware.. took about a day .. for the dealer to pull the old and install the new ( see my other posts)

2) no recall and they are not interested... otherwise they would have issues a TSB to deal with it...in lue of a recall

3)MY BRAKES WERE SPONGY FROM DAY ONE! and the dealer said thats just the way they are for a 6300# truck... so i started the research and ended up here.....replaced all calipers with SSBC and russel braided lines from hard lines to calipers, now i drive a nascar...brake system .. no spongy there..my wife also drives it and says it great feel for a large vehicle

we cart our two kids around in it and i used to commute into Boston... i needed good brakes.. i have them now.. I also just swapped the mechancal fan for two electric fans from flexlite....save some more HP and fuel milage, i used to have photos in carspace but they took that down.. i can send photos if you want ..

Almost a year later- and still don't have this truck fixed. Now the fuel line BROKE..rusted . The cab is rusting, the backing plates are totally gone, the parking brakes rusted. My husband wants to junk it, but my other car is a Ford Taurus- which we were just told will not pass inspection due to excessive frame rust. Why buy american? The US car makers do NOT stand behind their vehicles.

In the woods behind our home someone parked a 1940s dodge years ago. Through the years hunters have used it for target practice- the only rust on that car is around the edges of the bullet holes. If I were able to drag it down and get it running it would be more road worthy than either of our vehicles.

My daughters boyfriend just purchased a new truck, after seeing the issues we had with Ford and Chevy, he bought a brand new Toyota. His reasoning was at least Toyota will do a recall when something goes wrong. Are you listening GM?

Unfortunately we do not have the option of buying a new vehicle. I have called GM customer service, they were usless. The answer was that the vehicle was out of warranty...well duh.

I have a 2000 GMC Sierra 1500 with 138k miles. Last year I replace a broken right frontBrake line. All the other lines are rusty and I am just waiting for the others to go. Last Saturday I pressed the brake pedal hard because of a yellow traffic light. I felt something give and know my pedal goes all the way to the floor. I ran the red light! I am lucky that no one was coming and that no one was already stopped! My master cylinder is almost full of fluid. I see a slight leak from the box under the driver&#146;s seat. What is this box? At first I though it might be the master cylinder but, don't they give you a little notice? I have no Pressure and the small drip. Can the probleb :confuse: be the master cylinder or the box?

I have a 99 Silverado 4x4 z71 new body style with 248,000 miles. Had the ABS module replaced at 86,000 mi (under warranty) and recently had all the brakes, rotors and one new caliper installed at 215,000 mi.

The other day I was stopped at a stop sign and all of a sudden my foot went to the floor. I took it to P boys and they wanted to replace all my lines and the caliper (because they couldn't get the bleed valves loose. I checked the vacuum and I have hard pedal (with the vacuum line off) and when I put the line back on the pedal goes to the floor. Their is still about 1/4 inch on the pedal and if I stand on them they do stop the truck.

The brake reservoir was real low and I added fluid, pumped the brakes, but see no fluid on the lines, ABS, calipers or wheels.

Hateful Jim here: Ya know, as much as i really do love my truck, (its a really nice looking truck, and when its working right, its a pretty decent truck), as i was saying, as much as i really do love my truck, EVERY TIME i read a new post, it occurs to me that GM REALLY DOESNT CARE ABOUT THEIR CUSTOMERS, they just wanna MAKE MORE MONEY, and produce more LOW QUALITY vehicles to sell for OUTRAGEOUS prices.

JUST 1 question comes to mind here, Has anyone OTHER than myself thought that THIS just MIGHT be a good time for a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT against general motors????? I mean, 376 posts by different customers, and drivers taking a chance getting KILLED by trucks that have defective BRAKE LINES, SOUNDS LIKE A SAFETY VIOLATION TO ME!! If these were COMMERCIAL vehicles, the DOT would be on this like flies on a dead horse!!! Now i'm not a lawyer, but i do believe that this problem with GM meets the requirements for a CLASS ACTION SUIT!! Anyone that knows how to start one, I'm willing to join up, before someone in MY family gets killed.

brake lines rusted out and had them replaced, put new rotors and pads all the way around, calipers appear to be good. Now it seems when braking going downhill at very slow speed I hear an awful noise and the brake pedal feels like it is pushing back against my foot..it almost seems like the ABS is kicking in or attempting to kick in. This only happens when braking and coming to a full stop or almost full stop going downhill only. Never happens any other time. Suggestions?

Hey Bigterp, my guess it could be a wheel bearing issue... some other folks in this list have had very similar issues/noises and frustrations...look for abs in this list of posts and search for wheel bearing also .. usually they list ABS issue going slow with applying brakes... GL my friend ...

its also a pretty cheap way to fix it .. as well .. the bearings are not terribly expensive ..tt

I have a 93 GMC Sierra 1500 and my brakes feel like they are manual only. No power assist and real hard to stop truck. Brake pedal feels the same with the engine running or not. I replaced the front calipers, ran new brake fluid by bleeding untill fluid was almost clear. What do i need to check as to why there is no power assist. My master cylinder has an electronic box on the valves. How do I check this? The brakes are closing just not strong enough to stop truck properly. This is my 16 year old son's truck so he can't drive it untill I have this problem fixed so PLEASE give me some help. Thanks

I have 2002 Silverado with these same issuses. I have changed rotors, pads, made sure calipers are working, and speed sensor. Still have the problem when coming to a full stop. Brake pedal shudders and pushes back and does NOT brake. I have to pump the pedal to engage braks at that moment.There is no movement in wheel bearing either. Has anyone with this issue been able to resolve it The mechanic that changed the speed sensor said that there was some neverseise on the teeth of the ring in the hub and he cleaned it best he could. Could that be a cause for this problem?

I have a 2000 silverado with 55,000 miles on it and i will be putting the fourth set of pads and roters on it this week,also need to replace the calipers,roters & brackets, soft lines , backing plates & emerg. brake cables. All with lots of rust and corrision. Getting expensive and not to mention the #^&^$# agravation. no rust anywhere else I have found yet.HELP GM.... :mad: :mad:

Thanks mrfixit911. I was going to do that but I didn't have a fuse identified as Anti Brake. But that idea caused me to disable the anti brakes by disconnecting the cable. This gave me a anti brake dashboard light but the brakes worked just fine. From one of the other posts I decided to change the hub. This finally fixed the problem even though the hub showed no symptoms of being worn. I hope this helps out anybody else that has the same problem with their anti lock brakes.

Not sure what the differences are in the various versions of brake equipment, but I have 2003 Silverado 1500HD that has 124000 miles on it and still has the original brake pads with some significant life left. I tow my boat to the ocean which included backing the trailer down until the back wheels touch the salt water, and there are only very minor signs of corrosion. For what it's worth, last time I was at the chevy parts desk I asked what new brake pads would cost for my truck and they quoted something around $250 per Axle! At that cost for the pads alone, they better last pretty long!

My major problem with the Silverado brakes is in the emergency brake which has never worked right and now doesn't work at all. What a hokey design!

i hav a 2000 gmc serria i just put new rear calipers break line i bleeded all brakes fronts hav gd pressure and 1 rear has gd pressre exept right rear is weakthe brake pedal goes to the floordoes anyone know or experince this problem thx donnie

I own a 2004 Siverado 2500HD crew cab with 69,000 miles on it. This past weekend as I was leaving the boat ramp my brake pedal went to the floor. After getting it stopped with the E-brake I began looking for a leak. It didn't take long, as I found the wet spot on the frame and front drive shaft. Upon further inspection, I found the 5 lines that run into the ABS (??? not sure if that is what it is) on the frame under the drivers seat, severely rusted and one had split. Had it towed for 175.00 home. When I started researching replacement parts I find that this has been under investigation since 2008? I guess brakes are not an important enough system for GM or the NHTSB to take seriously! I had my family with me and a boat behind. Thank god it happened in the country. I live in Atlanta and it could have been much worse if I had been in town! Why are they dragging their feet on this??? If it had been a Toyota..... I have always been a die hard GM guy, but putting my family at such grave risk without so much as a note saying "You might want to check your lines" is unbelievably ridiculous! This is a monumental failure on the part of GM and the NHTSB. I filed a complaint with the nhtsb and have received no response...go figure!

Hateful Jim here, from the origional post # 332. Just want to let ya'll know that GM really cant afford to deal with ALL these "Frivolous" complaints about brakes, and ruptured brake lines.We all bought a really nice looking plastic truck, we should be proud to own a Chevrolet, besides, they are made in America, (Well, thats not exactly correct, most of them are made in Canada).

Maybe we need to give them another "Stimulus" to help them deal with all the defective brake lines, and other defective parts. Buy AMERICAN, yeah- right!!

I had the same problem with my 2004 Silverado, except brake failure occurred at 48K miles. Since I lived in Cincinnati, the Chevy service representative said the failure was caused by living in the north, which is clearly a bunch of BS. The repair cost me over $1,300. I also filed with NHTSA and have heard nothing. Although there is an open investigation, it currently does not include models later than 2003. You need to contact Chris Lash (chris.lash@nhtsa.dot.gov; 202-366-2370), who heads the investigation, and urge him to include later model years.

budnkris1. Sorry to hear about the near accident and very relieved to hear your family is safe. This happened to me 2 times with my 2003 GMC 2500 HD, also below 60,000. You are not alone and this catastrophic failure is very poor engineering, as engineers are taught to significantly increase the factor of safety when dealing with human safety ( I am a degreed Mechanical Engineer). Both of my failures in the brake lines occurred above the frame near the left front wheel. I have since removed all GM OEM brake lines and have replaced them SS or another corrosion resistant line that is available in New York State. Simply, the wrong material was selected by GM Engineering for their products in the markets in which they are sold. The quote from your dealer and GM shows their extreme lack of ignorance and lack of concern for their customers. Worse it shows their lack of technical expertise as they have now simply stated that they are incapable of designing, manufacturing and selling trucks for any US States where it snows. I would strongly suggest you check and replace other critical lines on your truck as these too have prematurely failed on my truck. They are: Fuel lines- my failure resulted in a leak under pressure causing a fine mist spray of fuel, luckily no flash fire. PS lines - if you have hydroboost, you lose your power steering AND your power brakes. This happened while towing my boat, luckily no accident. Also, if you have the auxiliary oil cooler ( option that may used on trucks with SNOW Plow packages-- ironic isn't it?) this line failure causes you to lose oil under pressure, luckily mine was caught in the parking lot, and I therefore did not destroy the engine. Another critical engineering item that GM is missing on the brake line failure is this. The weakened brake lines will probably work under normal driving for some time, but will catastrophically fail during a panic stop, when brake line pressure is higher. This makes the problem on the roads today much worse. This was my experience in both cases, and is also evidenced as true by all the accounts of failure that I have read.

I will continue to post my fact based accounts of my actual events so that future accidents can be prevented and lives hopefully saved. I would appreciate it if GM contacted my directly, compensated me for the thousands of dollars in premature fluid line replacements and provide suitably engineered replacements to the trucks that are on the road today. At this point, a 35 year GM customer is no longer, as well as family. Dear GM Customer Service, this problem started under warranty and some lines were replaced at that time so this IS a design problem. Further, I am on the second round of replacements, proving it is not just a one off manufacturing defect. I would be happy to assist your engineering department if they are struggling to reproduce this in their labs. I know you have salt spray test labs and required life tests for your products, because I have personally worked in one of your facilities. I strongly suggest you bring this problem to your engineering department, and stop simply referring customers back to the dealer. If you drive a smaller car and have children in the back seat, ask yourself next time you see a GM truck close behind - does that truck have a brake line that is about to burst? Is the driver following to close, worse, is he towing a 10,000 lb load?

Terrybill, If GM dealer used OEM lines, you may need to replace them again if you keep the truck for another 40,000 miles or 4 years. Mine too failed at about 45,000 miles and then another at 60,000 miles. I have replaced with corrosion resistant material. Check your oil cooler, fuel and power steering lines.

On one hand, it's good to know you're not alone in this...on the other it sucks that so many are affected! Thanks for the response. Terrybill, I will contact him and anyone else that I find out about. It's not about the money at this point, but the safety of mine and everyone elses families that travel our roads. This includes the non owners who WILL BE affected when one of these trucks fails to stop and causes loss of property and/or (God forbid) LIFE!

Mr Lash, I have already submitted a complaint to the NHTSA with little more than an automated response. The ODI # is 10414892. Attached are the pictures of my brake lines that failed due to extreme corrosion on my 2004 Siverado 2500HD. The current mileage is 63491. VIN #1GCHK23UX4F230932. I cannot understand why, with all the complaints, that your current investigation stops at 2003. This is NOT a normal failure. I have vehicles with over 200,000 miles on them that show no such corrosion on the brake lines. This is obviously an engineering failure. As an aircraft mechanic I know that all government safety standards are written in blood. Thank god my families was not spilled, but I know that someones will have to be to get the government to act! I was, as so many are, completely unaware of this issue until I had to look up the replacement parts. Low and behold, countless forum's erupted as a result my Google search for my truck model's brake lines. Why don't you put out at least a TSB? I'll tell you...no one wants to tarnish General Motors' reputation any further. Instead your division of government is satisfied to turn a blind eye ("Investigating" for 3 years) until someone is killed in a wreck caused by this failure. Then it will be, "This is a travesty, how could this have happened?" and the headlines will continue. These trucks weigh 9400 Lbs and routinely are towing something, so most likely, MORE THAN ONE FATALITY WILL BE INVOLVED! One of these trucks is most likely is behind you and your family every day. I know your hands are tied by beauracracy, but I implore you to do what is right. At minimum, force a TSB so people are not oblivious to this DEADLY defect. I refuse to believe that any human being could knowingly ignore the possibility of preventing even one fatality. I hope you understand that I am writing you this to ensure this stops happening, and that you expand the year models involved. Look at the forums. This is a widespead problem, further forward than 2003.

I just ran into the same problem this weekend and thank you all for the thread and information.

My truck is a 2005 Silverado 2500HD with 22,000 miles. My regular mechanic said that they have seen this at least 20 times. Same rusted lines at the ABS unit under the driver&#146;s door. I don't plow, it's obviously not my daily driver, and it has always been parked on a paved driveway.

My nephew was using it to move firewood and I am so glad that he called me when he felt it wasn't stopping right instead of continuing. My mechanic is going to replace all the lines with a nickel/copper alloy product as well as the hoses and the calipers because the bleeders rusted completely off. $1500.00 estimate. There goes the vacation. I will start contacting the dealer, GM, and NHTSB tomorrow. I'm going to tell everyone I know.

On a side note, my dad has a 2007 Silverado 1500 with 3 times the mileage. He lives 2 miles up the street, on top of a hill that gets extra "salt" in the winter and after a quick look under his truck I could see no rust; neither does my 2003 Camry which has over 115,000 miles and is my daily driver in most snow storms. (Fuel economy)